Looks like the car shortage bug got to the Providence rush hour trains (which seemed unscathed for the past month). Both the 842/821 and 808/825 sets were down a car each yesterday, and I counted only 6 doubles from 823 when it just passed by my house (could've been 6 doubles and a flat, couldn't notice behind the trees). All of these sets normally 8 doubles.

FWIW, there's still that double decker car hanging out at the Pawtucket layover. Can't get the number off of it without risking my safety, though....

Two rush hour Providence trains seemed to have issues, causing them to be swapped out, according to the MBTA CR Twitter. 806 in the morning (normally an 8 car set) and then 825 in the evening (8 cars as well).

The federal data, released this week, cast a harsh light on the T and Keolis, the private operator that holds a $2.69 billion contract to manage the commuter rail. After the T’s 338 breakdowns, the New Jersey Transit Corporation had 236 — 30 percent fewer than the T — followed by the MTA’s Long Island rail, which had just 132.

But both of those systems logged far more traveling miles than the T. The Long Island system recorded 76.2 million miles last year — while New Jersey had 64.7 million. The MBTA logged just 24.1 million miles.

Some "good" news:

After ringing up 561 cancellations in 2016, Keolis is on pace for 340 this year in a system that runs 3,000 trains per week. As a whole this year, Keolis’ on-time performance has hovered at 89 percent — below its 90 percent target but above the 10-year average.

Q: is it the case that NJT and LIRR use of electric power (esp MUs) is inherently less prone to train cancellations than MBTA's 100% use of diesel hauled trains? I'm guessing that if one of 10 MU cars in a train loses motive power due to traction motor failure, the consist will continue to run.

I would say electric traction should be inherently more reliable than diesel/electric. I would think an MU train would have more issues due to complexity than a push-pull, don't know if that would affect reliability tho.